NewScientist.com news service The sudden and uncontrollable paedophilia exhibited by a 40-year-old man was caused by an egg-sized brain tumour, his doctors have told a scientific conference. And once the tumour had been removed, his sex-obsession disappeared. The cancer was located in the right lobe of the orbifrontal cortex, which is known to be tied to judgment, impulse control and social behaviour. But neurologists Russell Swerdlow and Jeffrey Burns, of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, believe it is the first reported case linking damage to the region with paedophilia. "We're dealing with the neurology of morality here," says Swerdlow. Since the area does not affect physical health, "it's one of those areas where you could have a lot of damage and a doctor would never suspect something's wrong," he says. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 2840 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NEW YORK, (AP) While Ecstasy increasingly becomes a favored drug among teens, only one percent of U.S. parents believe their child has ever tried the "club drug," according to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's annual report. The nonprofit group's survey of parents, released on Monday, also found that while 92 percent of parents were aware of the drug, nearly half would not recognize its effects on their kids. Symptoms of Ecstasy use include blurred vision, rapid eye movement, chills or sweating, dehydration, confusion, faintness, severe anxiety, grinding of teeth and a trance-like state. © MMII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. ©MMII, CBS Worldwide Inc, All Rights Reserved.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2839 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Barbara Feder Ostrov Mercury News News that a nearly 300 percent increase in autism cases in California appears to be a real phenomenon is lending urgency to the search for a cause -- and a cure -- for this mysterious disease. California now has 18,460 reported cases of autism, mostly in children. An alarming spike in the state's caseload starting in the late 1980s cannot be explained simply by better diagnoses, increased awareness of the disease or families moving to the state for treatment, University of California-Davis scientists reported last week. But their research didn't answer the urgent questions of every parent who has an autistic child: How did this happen? And how can we treat it?

Keyword: Autism; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2838 - Posted: 10.21.2002

Tom Harrell, 56, who lives in New York, US, is a successful trumpeter, composer, arranger and flugelhorn player. He won a Grammy nomination in 2000 for his album Time's Mirror, and has recently launched his 19th album. Tom developed schizophrenia in his late teens. The life of a musician involves touring and meeting lots of different people - something which can be difficult for people with schizophrenia. But his wife and manager Angela, to whom Tom has been married for 10 years, says his illness has helped him focus on his music. She told BBC News Online: "On an emotional level, his experience with schizophrenia has somehow manifested itself in his music." (C) BBC

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 2837 - Posted: 10.20.2002

Patients who were more aware of their failing memories showed more improvement in recalling people's names WASHINGTON - Simple, systematic memory training can help some people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD). This finding points to a possible psychological intervention early in the course of this devastating brain disease. It also lends some urgency to early diagnosis, when patients who still have the ability to learn can use it to sharpen their memories and reduce disability. This encouraging news appears in the October issue of Neuropsychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA). In London, neuropsychologists affiliated with University College London, The Open University, and the Medical Research Council Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England, were intrigued by anecdotal "success stories" of memory training provided by rehabilitation experts. Explains lead researcher Linda Clare, Ph.D., the evidence suggested that even without medicine, "There is a good deal that can be done to improve well-being [in AD]." To assess the validity of such training if standardized, Clare's team conducted a controlled study to see whether it would work with a larger group of people. They also wanted to learn whether the benefits of training endured. The researchers studied 12 participants (average age: 71) who were diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's Disease (AD) at the minimal or mild stage, when they still had some capacity for learning. Participants took neuropsychological tests of their general intellectual ability, memory, naming, visuospatial perception, attention and executive function. All of the participants were impaired on at least one of the memory tests, and some also were impaired on naming and perceptual tasks. Researchers also evaluated their mood, behavior, awareness of their memory problems, and the strain on the caregiver (usually the wife or husband) before and after the intervention. © PsycNET 2002 American Psychological Association

Keyword: Alzheimers; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 2836 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LISA SANDERS, M.D. "'She's just not herself,'' began a worried-looking, middle-aged woman when I introduced myself. It was a Sunday afternoon, and because of the volume of patients, she was waiting with her mother in the noisy E.R. hallway. ''She says there's nothing wrong,'' the woman continued, ''but she's clearly not herself.'' Her brother, a pudgy, red-faced man, nodded in agreement. They stood on either side of a gaunt elderly woman, who sat on a stretcher. Her skin hung loosely from the delicate bones of her face. She greeted me with a calm and curious gaze, but that serenity ended at her eyes. Her body was a riot of movement. Her fingers roamed restlessly across the surface of the bed, arranging and rearranging the folds and creases in the bedding. Her shoulders shrugged in a constant acknowledgment of ignorance. Her mouth moved back and forth, up and down, like a parody of a child with a mouthful of gum. ''My mother has always been independent,'' the daughter said. ''She's been living alone since my dad died 20 years ago. She cooks, she goes out every day to do her shopping and errands. Or at least she used to.'' Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 2835 - Posted: 10.20.2002

By ANDREW POLLACK WEST CHESTER, Pa. LIKE most top executives, Frank Baldino Jr. sometimes does not get enough sleep. But Dr. Baldino, the founder and chief executive of Cephalon Inc., a biotechnology company, may be able to cope with lack of sleep better than most. He has a prescription for Provigil, his company's No. 1 drug, which some doctors and users say has the ability to keep people awake and alert for hours, or even days. And it appears to do so without the side effects — the buzz and jitteriness, or the risk of addiction — of coffee or amphetamines. Provigil, which is short for "promotes vigilance," was approved late in 1998 for treatment of sleepiness associated with narcolepsy, a condition in which people fall asleep uncontrollably. But use of the drug is expanding rapidly, with more than 80 percent of the prescriptions written to treat the fatigue and sleepiness associated with many other diseases, like depression and multiple sclerosis, or even just sleepiness caused by no disease at all. Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 2834 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By SHARON L. CRENSON, AP National Writer BURLINGTON, Vt. - A study of Californians who loaded their lunch and dinner menus with fish shows 89 percent wound up with elevated mercury levels in their bodies. The research, presented Saturday by San Francisco internist Dr. Jane Hightower at a symposium of environmental health experts in Vermont, is one of the first studies to document mercury levels in Americans who eat more fish than the Environmental Protection Agency recommends. Doctors are increasingly interested in the possible risks of eating too much mercury-tainted fish, and the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration are trying to better inform the public about the subject. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Neurotoxins
Link ID: 2833 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Phillip Giltman Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer KENNESAW — When their second son was 18 months old, Ramon and Stacey Ramirez knew something was wrong. “A mother knows when something isn’t right,” Ms. Ramirez said. “We saw he began to stray away from his friends and his brother, and he couldn’t be anywhere near other children.” For his second birthday, Ms. Ramirez decided to throw her son a carnival and invited the entire neighborhood to the party. To the Ramirez’s surprise, the birthday boy was nowhere to be found. ©2000 MyWebPal.com.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 2832 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Surgery made Joshua attentive and alert, but future is uncertain "How is Joshua doing?" We are asked at least a dozen times a day since we shared the story of our son's battle with a rare seizure disorder called hemimegalencephaly and his recovery from radical brain surgery. Your response to "Joshua's Journey" - which ran in the Lansing State Journal in August - was simply amazing. We have a 3-inch thick binder crammed with more than 250 e-mails, cards and letters. Not just from Lansing, but from around the state, nation and world. Copyright 2002 Lansing State Journal

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Regeneration
Link ID: 2831 - Posted: 10.20.2002

By CINDY HORSWELL Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Three years ago, Helen Smith found her grandson locked in an empty 4-foot-by-4-foot closet, deprived of food. She then learned that the 11-year-old, Paul Daniel Kilgore, was being routinely confined in the so-called "quiet room" at Harlem Elementary in Baytown in response to his bad behavior. Paul Daniel's family put an end to his confinement that day, but the mystery surrounding his erratic conduct continued. It would take two more years and a half-dozen hospital stays before he was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder -- a brain disorder affecting mood regulation.

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2830 - Posted: 10.20.2002

NewScientist.com news service The noise from nearby airports impairs children's reading ability and long-term memory, a new study has revealed. But the effects are reversible, say environmental psychologists who took advantage of a switch of airports in Munich, Germany to conduct the first before-and-after study of the problem. Gary Evans at Cornell University, New York, and colleagues monitored reading, memory, attention and speech perception in schoolchildren before and after the opening of the new international airport in the city and the simultaneous closure of the old airport. Children aged between 8 and 12 and living near the airport sites were monitored six months before the airport switch, and one and two years afterwards. Two control groups were also assessed, making a total of 326 children. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Hearing
Link ID: 2829 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON, — A federal judge has struck down rules that required drug companies to test their products in children. The rules were intended to give doctors and parents more information about the drugs' safety and the proper dosage. "The pediatric rule exceeds the Food and Drug Administration's statutory authority and is therefore invalid," said Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. of the Federal District Court here. In the ruling, issued on Thursday, Judge Kennedy said that the food and drug agency was overreaching, just as when it tried to regulate tobacco products. In both cases, he said, the agency's rules were inconsistent with the statutory framework established by Congress. Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2828 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY Officials at state psychiatric hospitals in New York ordered social workers this week to stop sending discharged patients to locked units in private nursing homes. The move ends a six-year-old practice that was supposed to help scale back the state's costly psychiatric system but has raised civil rights concerns. The Pataki administration has allowed as many as a dozen nursing homes to keep discharged psychiatric patients locked away in the units, where they are prohibited from going outside on their own, have almost no contact with others and have little ability to contest their confinement. The turnabout comes after the United States Justice Department opened a review of the units to determine whether conditions violate federal laws that protect the rights of people who are institutionalized or have disabilities. The department began the review after an article about the units appeared in The New York Times on Oct. 6. Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Alzheimers
Link ID: 2827 - Posted: 10.19.2002

Scientists aim to settle the question of whether strep infections in kids are linked with the disorder. By DIANE CHUN Sun medical writer "Step on a crack, break your mother's back!" Many of us have played this childhood game, carefully avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk on a walk home from school. But when the need to avoid those cracks becomes obsessive, it can be a sign of a child in trouble, one afflicted with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. A new University of Florida study may settle once and for all the baffling question of whether common strep infections are linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder or tics (involuntary muscle spasms) in some children.

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2826 - Posted: 10.19.2002

Couples could choose whether to have a boy or a girl Parents in the UK could one day be allowed to use fertility techniques to choose their baby's sex, suggests a document seen by the BBC. The suggestion is to be included in a consultation document from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which is due to be published in the next few days. This could mean techniques now only allowed on medical grounds could be used for so-called "family balancing." This is when a couple which has children of one gender wants to have one of the other to "balance" out their family. At the moment, couples have to go abroad for the procedure. The HFEA is asking the public to submit their views on the issue. (C) BBC

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 2825 - Posted: 10.18.2002

Researchers examine direct protein-to-protein communication in brain by Jessica Whiteside Researchers at the University of Toronto and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) have discovered a communication link between proteins in the brain that could lead to improved treatments for psychiatric disorders and stroke. The study, published in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Cell, examined the interaction between two proteins known as dopamine D1 and NMDA receptors. The research group, led by Fang Liu, an assistant professor in U of T's Department of Psychiatry and CAMH's Section of Molecular Neurobiology, Neuroscience Research Department, found that two parts of the D1 receptor interact directly with two subunits of the NMDA receptor. These interactions modulate two separate NMDA functions in the brain - cell death and normal cell-to-cell communication. This study is the first to show that the interaction between D1 and the NMDA receptor also regulates - and, in fact, prevents - cell death.

Keyword: Stroke; Schizophrenia
Link ID: 2824 - Posted: 10.18.2002

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE Trying to account for a drastic rise in childhood autism in recent years, a California study has found that it cannot be explained away by statistical anomalies or by a growing public awareness that might have led more parents to report the disorder. But the study's authors, who reported their findings yesterday to the California Legislature, said they were at a loss to explain the reasons for what they called an epidemic of autism, the mysterious brain disorder that affects a person's ability to form relationships and to behave normally in everyday life. "Autism is on the rise in the state, and we still do not know why," said the lead author, Dr. Robert S. Byrd, an epidemiologist and pediatrician at the University of California at Davis. "The results are, without a doubt, sobering." Copyright The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD
Link ID: 2823 - Posted: 10.18.2002

London - The brain, not the genitals, could be the determining factor in whether a person is male or female. American scientists have discovered that before male or female mice develop sex organs in the womb their brains may already be wired to be a particular sex. If the same holds true for humans, it could help to determine the "brain sex" of babies born with ambiguous sex organs, New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday. ©2002. All rights strictly reserved.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 2822 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Prion diseases, such as mad cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans--have stumped scientists for decades with a complex "whodunnit" complete with many suspects and a missing murder weapon. The brain of a victim killed by prion diseases is clogged with clumps of prion protein (PrP) in a rare, misfolded state called PrPSc. Controversy has long raged about how these diseases get started and if the clumps of PrPSc actually kill brain cells--in some forms of the disease clumps aren't even there. The culprit responsible for the death of neurons is still a mystery. Now research from Whitehead Institute Director Susan Lindquist and Jiyan Ma, now at Ohio State University, suggests a unifying theory that can help explain how these devastating diseases get started and how they kill. The results, published in two papers in the October 17, 2002 online issue of the journal Science , show that small amounts of PrP accumulating in the cellular space called the cytosol kill neurons in cultured cells and transgenic mice. Mice suffered from neurodegeneration and loss of muscle control, similar to patients with CJD and other prion diseases. Copyright © 1992-2002 Bio Online, Inc.

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 2821 - Posted: 06.24.2010